Your unofficial guide to television licence rules, regulations, loopholes and enforcement in the UK.

Why we're here:This blog is to highlight the unjust persecution of legitimate non-TV users at the hands of TV Licensing. These people do not require a licence and are entitled to live without the unnecessary stress and inconvenience caused by TV Licensing's correspondence and employees.

If you use equipment to receive live broadcast television programmes then the law requires you to have a licence and we encourage you to buy one.

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Sunday, 26 June 2011

TV Licensing Drip Feed Misinformation

I was browsing cyberspace as I often do in the pursuit of TV Licensing related articles and I happened across the Yahoo! Answers site.

For those unfamiliar with it, as I was until recently, it allows people to pose questions for others to answer. People can also vote on suggested answers to show their agreement or otherwise. Quite alarming is the number of Yahoo! Answers members who have become "experts" by providing dubious information to say the least.

One question in particular drew my attention: "Do I want to pay TV licence fee if I go to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer to watch recorded programs?" Excuse the poor sentence structure, as originally posted by the questioner.

The last words of the question, underlined by me, make it perfectly clear that the questioner wants to watch pre-recorded programmes on the iPlayer, which definitely does not require a TV licence. The top answer therefore provides incorrect information so please give it a thumbs down if you can.

Remember that a TV licence is only required where equipment is used to receive or record live (as broadcast) television signals. A licence is not required for viewing pre-recorded media of any description.

I am pretty confident there are undercover BBC employees posting misinformation on sites like Yahoo! Answers, with the intention of deceiving people into paying for a licence they do not need.

Coincidentally, a comment left here earlier reinforces the idea that TV Licensing are deliberately economical with the truth when it comes to the legalities of when a licence is required.

The commenter said: "I have just had an interesting conversation with someone who is a magistrate. It appears that the guidance they are given means that they are directed to find people guilty of licence evasion even if the person up in front of them in court is simply in POSSESSION of a TV, although there is no evidence of the person WATCHING TV without a licence."

If true that is absolutely scandalous. In effect it means innocent people are being convicted of an offence they have not committed.

3 comments:

I joined Yahoo Answers just to make a comment. I am not allowed a thumbs down yet until my "score" improves.

I just happened to watch a bit of BBC news the other day (definitely not something I ever normally do haha) and saw some very shitty coverage, so I couldn't resist making this amateur effort:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jYSJ2ugPsM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

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